THE GUARDIAN
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
In her review of April 27, Janet Maslin writes in the New York Times:
When seeking professional childcare help, never hire anyone who
thinks she is a tree. This is the lesson of THE GUARDIAN, and
it's hard to find fault with, although that cannot be said for the
film otherwise.
Well. The Phantom must say that he has always been an admirer of the film reviews in the New York Times; unlike the simple-minded thumbs who "review" films on television, the Times' reviewers are critics in the best sense of the word, and their reviews are always well considered and informative.
So one can understand how flattered the Phantom felt when he read the lead paragraph of Ms. Maslin's review. Yet it behooves him to ask, "Now, who's reading whose reviews here?" Alas, if only the Phantom got Ms. Maslin's free preview tickets, let alone her salary.... But for him it is enough to know that he has found another phan on the staff of his favorite daily.
Though clever, Maslin's lead paragraph is also very misleading. To be fair, the Phantom never expects accurate reviews of horror films from the Times, but Maslin seems to have missed the point of THE GUARDIAN. Like most horror films, THE GUARDIAN doesn't exist to teach us a lesson (unless one thinks that "Don't go in the basement" is a lesson). Instead THE GUARDIAN exists only to entertain and to scare us, and in that capacity it does a very good job indeed.
So let's start with a brief summary. THE GUARDIAN is yet another in a long line of mainstream "adult" horror films. Like THE EXORCIST (also by the director, William Friedkin), THE OMEN, and more recently, CHILD'S PLAY, THE GUARDIAN is a horror film designed to appeal to those people who would not otherwise go to a horror film. And while it's not nearly as successful THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN, it works about as well as CHILD'S PLAY (though whether it does as well at the box office remains to be seen) -- in other words, it's not a classic, but it's pretty good in it's own way.
The story is fairly simple, if a tad unusual. Imagine, if you will, that the Druids were right -- that trees really do have spirits and can exert influence over people and the world around them. Now imagine that one of these Druids is also a nanny. Still with me? OK, now to complete our mental picture, imagine that one of the trees -- an *evil* tree -- demands human sacrifices, particularly *infant* sacrifices.
Certainly by its very nature, THE GUARDIAN gives THE FIRST POWER a run for its money as this year's silliest horror film. But although it sounds fairly outlandish, once you buy the premise, THE GUARDIAN is a lot of fun. Unlike THE FIRST POWER, THE GUARDIAN starts out silly and stays that way -- in general, the Phantom prefers films that work like this, rather than ones like THE FIRST POWER, that start out sensible and promising and end up in a big muddle.
THE GUARDIAN begins with a bit of explanation -- it seems that the producers don't believe that their audience would understand what Druids are without three or four screens worth of explanation. Unfortunately, the preamble reminded the Phantom of nothing less than a cross between the Stonehenge sequence from THIS IS SPINAL TAP and the disclaimer at the beginning of SCARFACE. Briefly, the producers want to be sure that everyone understands that the Druids were an ancient religious sect that worshipped trees, and that while most Druids (and, presumably, most trees) are fine, upstanding members of their communities and/or forests, some are just bad seeds -- real rotten apples -- trees and disciples that have gone over to the Dark Side. The Phantom apologizes in advance if he didn't get this part exactly right, but he thinks that this was the general idea. Why these trees are evil is never explained -- perhaps they're tired of being turned into press releases and fax paper, or maybe they've been cheated out of their residuals for THE WIZARD OF OZ -- but honestly, neither the Phantom nor the twelve-year-olds he was surrounded by required further explanation. Evil trees? No problem! Once you buy into pizza-eating turtles and stunt-nuns, your tolerance for cinematic silliness goes way up.
Now, the Phantom would normally take some time here to further describe the plot, but in this case it's hardly necessary, and in fact it might possibly spoil the film for some. THE GUARDIAN is not a film that is loaded with surprises, so the Phantom would feel worse than usual if he gave some of them away.
Disappointed? Oh, all right then, let's give some of them away anyway. Here goes. Couple hires nanny, nanny cares for infant, nanny communes with evil tree, nanny takes infant, couple chases nanny -- you get the idea. Surprised?
Well, surprisingly, there *are* some surprises. For one, there are several OMEN-like killings done with 90s-style special effects and gore. For another, the film doesn't plod along in TV movie-of- the-week fashion -- the editing, camera work and cinematography are all top-notch. Friedkin hasn't lost his touch since his days of directing Linda Blair amidst buckets of pea soup: THE GUARDIAN looks and feels a lot like the EXORCIST did, and the Phantom enjoyed that expert look and feel more than he did almost anything else about the film. The Phantom was particularly disappointed with Maslin's review in this respect: she complains that Friedkin concentrates too much on "things decorative" and sets up shots in forests and meadows so that "viewers are apt to notice wildflowers in the foreground." Oh dear. Isn't that the point? This film *is*, after all, about evil Druids, so one would think that placing the characters in the context of the wildlife surrounding them would be important. Much better this than the relatively uninspired camera work of THE FIRST POWER, to pick on our favorite silly horror film yet again.
For film buffs, Friedkin has also scattered several "inside" references throughout THE GUARDIAN -- the Phantom caught at least three -- and as the film progresses it also becomes obvious that Friedkin is nearly as big a phan of EVIL DEAD as is the Phantom himself (the "basement" scene in particular is strikingly reminiscent of one of the scenes in EVIL DEAD). Phans who want the inside track should pay particularly close attention to the radio programs that are "overheard" on occasion.
And those who are not into gore for gore's sake may want to consider playing peek-a-boo during some scenes; the Phantom himself was surprised at how far some of the violence went, especially given the supposed "mainstream" nature of this film. Unlike, say, HELLBOUND, which was never intended to appeal to non-horror phans, THE GUARDIAN appears on the surface to have been designed to appeal to people who don't normally appreciate a good dismemberment. To be fair, it never gets nearly as bad as HELLBOUND -- in fact, the gore-level is about on a par with one of the OMEN sequels (though nary a priest is wrapped in plastic and set on fire) -- but there are a few scenes that would do Romero proud. These trees don't kill people by dropping acorns on their heads, you know...
The acting is adequate (with the exception of Jenny Seagrove, whose performance as the evil nanny is not in the least wooden*), and baby Jake is definitely cute, even though he is portrayed at times by (in Maslin's words) "a screaming pile of towels." The special effects are generally well done, and although Friedkin seems to have used the same backlot forest that was featured in LEATHERFACE last year, the meadows are scenic and the film does its best to imbue what are, after all, just a bunch of plants with evil and ill-meaning intentions.
The Phantom really recommends this one, phans; despite its astoundingly silly plot, and despite some of the negative reviews it has garnered, THE GUARDIAN is a good, solid 90 minutes of fun with enough scares to keep even the most jaded horror-film buff on his toes. It's worth catching before it makes its Blockbusters debut.
*Yes, all right, that one was a bit of a stretch. Just be glad the Phantom couldn't come up with a good pun for "druid."
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
.
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